An issue like this should, in practice, be an argument against a monolithic service. For example, if Xbox Live were down, you wouldn’t be able to access Netflix, which is still available to users even though the PSN is down. This should have been an incredible first showing for Portal 2, seeing as its richest functionality exists on a robust and venerable parallel network. But Steam access is gated via their warped-ass oculus for some reason, even though other partners aren’t held to the same standard.

The thing to say on your web is that since PSN is free you can’t really complain about it, and that’s pretty dumb. Maybe you could have said that if you couldn’t play Ratchet and Clank online with your Playstation 2, but that era is fucking over. By “that era,” I’m referring to the one where chains of appliance “islands” exist in millions of discrete universes across the globe. The store, your friends list, these aren’t perks. By 2011, they’re bedrock assertions of the medium. The deal they made with users - one which, for years, was the justification for a gruesome price disparity - was “free Xbox Live,” not “shit happens.”

They have a serious problem here, and as serious as their technology problem might be, it’s not the biggest one they have. Their problem is that they don’t know how to communicate about anything but their legendary prowess. They simply don’t have it. I mean, genetically. They need to find a human being, or hire one, and start an actual dialogue with users.